Kenya: Mwazo to Sell Kenya Cultural Tourism Abroad

Tourism minister Dan Mwazo has announced that Kenya will launch a campaign to sell Kenya's cultural tourism abroad. He said Kenya has diverse cultures which when properly marketed, can earn the country a lot of revenue.

"Apart from wildlife, we have other avenues of exploiting the tourism potential of our country and one of them is through our diverse cultures," said Mwazo.

He was speaking at the Taita Taveta Cultural Festival at Voi at the weekend, the minister said cultural tourism will ensure that all regions in the country fully participate in the industry.

Mwazo urged Kenyans who have rooms at their homes which are not in use to register them with the ministry for use in home-stay tourism. He said the initiative will help increase the countries bed capacity for more visitors.

"Give your houses to the Tourism ministry. By doing so, we shall make Kenya the best cultural tourism spot in the world," Mwazo said. He added that the government will put up a tourism training college in the Coast province.

"The institution will be known as Ronald Ngala Utalii College," Mwazo said. He said the college will help impact knowledge to the tourism hot spot Coastal people.

"Being a leading tourism destination, we realised it is paramount to put up the institution here to support the people. By so doing we shall be retaining our culture as Coastal people," he said.

During the event, four participants from Taita and Taveta communities were picked to represent the country as Cultural ambassadors abroad.

The winners will join other representatives from the 47 counties of the nation in marketing cultural tourism abroad. The participants went through a one-week training.

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